What to Do When You Know the Worst is Coming
by Aeroden
Summary: A brief look into the beginning of Neville's seventh year at Hogwarts. One-shot.


AN: It's been years since I've revisited the Potterverse. Or even attempted to write a fic.

Thank you to JK Rowling for creating this magical series for me to muddle in, and thanks to Jaded Delirium for being my beta reader. Enjoy!

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The year had started in much the same manner as it always had. There were the boats and the carriages transporting students, and the Great Hall in all its festive glory, and the Start-of-Term Feast was as sumptuous as always. There was Professor McGonagall, sorting out the new arrivals in her no-nonsense manner. Yet there was a sense of trepidation hanging overhead alongside the candles. The ceiling, with its clear, starlit sky, contrasted against the clouded thoughts of the students trickling into the Great Hall. There was, at best, a bit of nervous small talk among them, there being too few students to fill the Hall to its full capacity, and with the buzz Neville had grown accustomed to over the years. There was the Sorting, which finished too quickly for his liking, and the welcome speech given by the unwelcome Snape, and the unhappy introductions of Death Eaters thinly-veiled as Professors. Every bite of food that passed through his mouth tasted of sawdust.

Muggle Studies and Defence Against the Dark Arts, mockeries of what they were meant to be, were now taught by the Carrows. He told himself to keep his head down. He had already gotten in trouble for the train incident, and it wasn't worth dragging his classmates down with him. When Amycus Carrow thought the students should learn the Cruciatus Curse, he almost bit himself to stop shaking. There was nothing in the world that could drown out the screams playing in Neville's head as he demonstrated to the class a perfectly executed curse. He found himself imagining what it would be like to cast it on the Carrows and was horrified. For the first time in his life, he wanted to forget.

Not long after, he had run into Susan Bones in the Library. She tried to restrain herself, but the sound of her sobbing was obvious to anyone with one working ear. Madam Pince appeared to be pretending she wasn't there, though her expression brought to mind a prune that had been left out to dry too long. Seeing as that was the attitude the handful of other students were mimicking, Neville sat down beside her and offered a handkerchief. He stayed until she had calmed down. He could guess why she was crying.

He remembered returning, at night, to a room nearly empty. He would talk with Seamus, his sole remaining roommate, deep into the night when either of them couldn't sleep, which was often. They'd discuss, in hushed tones, how they would take Hogwarts back, their glorious defiance of the regime. Seamus would chuckle, half-serious, half-nervous, about bringing back Dumbledore's Army. Then there would be silence, as neither of them really believed they could fight off Death Eaters. Neville would lie back, in the darkness, and wonder where Harry was right now, if he was still alive, what he was doing, if Ron and Hermione were with him. He wished he could do what everyone expected Harry to, what everyone needed him to do. To be.

In a rare display of pure nerve, he had painted "Dumbledore's army, still recruiting" on a wall on the seventh floor, one quiet night. He had sprinted back to bed after, afraid of being caught. The slogan hadn't even managed to last the next 24 hours, yet the entire student body was abuzz. The embers of rebellion were lit.

He could swear he spotted at least a few former DA members checking their coins that week when they thought no one was watching. Neville was quite used to being nobody, and seeing his one act of defiance bring hope to others brought a smile to his own face.

As the days wore on once again, the students fell into the grim rhythm of school life once again. But however much they tried to hide the truth of matters from the student body, the rumours grew. Incidents of disobedience and vandalism increased. So did students in chains and hospital beds.

He tried to stop one of the Death Eaters' pet Slytherins from using a defiant first-year for Cruciatus curse practice. He had a dislocated shoulder and broken nose as thanks for his efforts. The first-year he had tried to save ended up in the hospital bed beside him. He had cursed, loud as he dared in the oppressive silence of the Hospital Wing, and a familiar voice called out to him.

"Neville?" She sounded hoarse, but hopeful.

"Ginny?"  
She proceeded to inform him (with some pride in her voice) that she had been sent there after being punished for setting a Bat-Bogey Hex loose on Amycus Carrow, to the cheering of many a student. Neville wondered how many of those students were similarly punished. As their excited chatter drew the attention of Madam Pomfrey, he learned all he needed to from her red-rimmed eyes.

He had dropped by Professor McGonagall's office one day late in September, to ask her for help. She had responded with her usual curt, firm voice. When Neville entered, her office was in the same neat, ordered state it had always been. Some small semblance of relief found its way into his heart; McGonagall, that pillar of reason, still stood steady. There were some things from the old days at Hogwarts that remained unchanged. He found his tongue, tied and fumbling, trying to put together a coherent sentence. When she leaned in and snapped "speak up Longbottom," as she had so often done before, he noticed the stray hair escaping from her always impeccable bun. He saw the lines on her face, and wondered if they had been so deep before. He saw the crumpled parchment squeezed in her hand. He had come to believe that McGonagall was a constant element of Hogwarts, one that would never change or falter. She had always seemed like someone who had come into the world exactly as she was, withstanding the test of time in her calm, stern manner. But he had thought the same of Dumbledore. Neville muttered about misplacing another Remembrall to her disapproving sigh before shuffling out of her office.

There was a time he encountered Malfoy while sneaking through the halls at night. He had pulled out his wand, ready to duel. Malfoy had his mouth hanging open, to notify his nearby goons, no doubt, but proceeded to breeze right past Neville as if he wasn't there. In the torchlight, Neville could see he was even paler than usual, taking on a sickly green hue that he wasn't certain was due to the poor lighting. As Malfoy's eyes darted to and from his face, back around the hall, Neville recognized a familiar look. He might be a selfish prick, but he was also afraid. And unlike Neville, he had no one to turn to.

He saw a third-year whose name he didn't know, screaming obscenities as he was dragged off after trying to slip the poison he brewed in Potions into Snape's pumpkin juice. He never learned what happened to him.

One beautiful autumn evening, his DA coin slipped out a hole in the pocket of his robes and clattered down an empty staircase. Or what he thought was an empty staircase. Luna picked it up and returned it to him. He had barely been aware that he was still carrying it, and tried to leave, but she stared him down with surprisingly fierce determination in her eyes. For once, her words made perfect sense to him. He looked at the coin, warm in his cold hand, and decided to prove the Sorting Hat right.

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Thank you for reading! Any critiques, reviews, and suggestions for future stories are very much welcome!


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